


Secret Santa

by pdorkaa



Series: gaters gonna gate | drabbles [1]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-10 08:26:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15945548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pdorkaa/pseuds/pdorkaa
Summary: SG-1 fathers a tradition of Secret Santa at the base. Mostly accidentally.





	Secret Santa

**Author's Note:**

> for a prompt: secret santa at the SGC, with Jaffa guests.

The first time they do it, it's almost a joke. Sam comes up with the idea, and it's clear that the intent behind it is caring, so the rest of the team doesn't quite laugh it off, even if they would want to. It is Jack, of course, who draws the metaphorical short straw and has to explain to Teal'c what a Secret Santa is.

But he does, and they do it.

It's tentative, at first. The drawing of the names is done right there, in Sam's lab, on Sam's desk cluttered with doohickey after doohickey, the names written on various scraps and pieces of paper torn out of her notebooks. They glance at the names they've drawn, and silence falls over them, each of them thinking, plotting almost, as one by one they leave the office.

Three days later, a flower pot shows up on Teal'c's doorstep, neatly wrapped in Christmas paper, a few pricks sticking out here and there. He takes the cactus, and it is never mentioned again, but if you walk the corridors quietly at night, you can hear him discussing various subjects with it.

Someone gets Daniel his own book. Yeah, the one that was widely shunned, the one he was disgraced for.

But then of course, Jack gets a single VHS tape, full of the worst Simpson episodes, dubbed over to fit his Goa'uld conspiracy theories.

Sam's pretty sure the Colonel and Daniel drew each other, and she finds it hard not to chuckle about their picking at each other.

Her gift, the one she gets, is a lot more subtle. She doesn't quite notice at first, because she has her eyes on her laptop and her nose in a cup of steaming coffee, but something jerks her out of her reverie. Her lab is sparkling clean, no coffee stain on the worn linoleum, no disorganised, haphazardly finished or discontinued scribblings in sight but a neat pile, the various computers and other equipment clean of the dust it is so prone to collect. She smiles to herself, and promptly spills a bit of her coffee in her exaggerated, anxious care to keep everything as pristine as she's found it.

The second time they do it, no one questions Jack when he walks into Daniel's office with Teal'c in tow and a fisherman's hat in his hands with four slips in it. They promptly need to conjure several more paper slips, because apparently word has gotten around, and not only Sergeant Harriman, but Siler, and what's more, the General Hammond himself soon join. It goes about the same as the last time, except for a very tense moment - Jack almost sacrificed a priceless manuscript in the name of their Secret Santa draw - and the marvellous gift someone gets Hammond. Not that anyone's laughing, not exactly, but they all share glances when Hammond actually shows up in a cowboy's hat in the appropriate Christmas colours.

By the time the SGC is housing Ishta's people, the refugees of Hak'tyl, the Stargate Command Secret Santa is somewhat of a local legend.

Jack can't say he's looking forward to it, not really, not with what he has on his plate right now, but it's good for the morale, and it's relatively harmless compared to the goatshit they've been forced to deal with. And he means it literally.

He's in his office, absently rubbing the bridge of his nose and wondering if 'goatshit' is an acceptable phrase to use in an official military report, when someone knocks on his doorframe.

He looks up, more than happy to be distracted, and sees a young lieutenant, only recently reassigned to the SGC. Hastings, he remembers, Marcus Hastings. He waves him in, and waves another hand to gesture him at ease. Yeah, the new transfers are always skittish about his laid-back demeanor.

"What is it?" He asks him, not bothering to tack the 'lieutenant' at the end of that sentence. Kid's gotta learn.

"Sir" Hastings swallows what appears to be a rather large blob of anxiety before he continues. "It is about the Secret Santa."

"Oh?" Jack leans back in his chair, his eyebrows drawn up. "What about it?"

"Sir, I-- I drew Master Bra'tac."

Well. That's not something Jack was prepared for, when he let the Jaffa partake in their little game. Oh, glorious hindsight.

Poor greenling Hastings is probably seven kinds of constipated right now about what to get for the practical founder of the Free Jaffa Nation, the hundred-and-Jack-lost-count years old Master Bra'tac.

He's this close to suggesting grenades, but he thinks better of it and sends Hastings to Teal'c. 

In the end, Bra'tac gets the shiniest ceremonial Jaffa weapon they could dredge up, and he seems to be very honoured as he promptly wipes the floor with Ryac in the name of training.

There are no hurt feelings, and only one broken nose, on the part of a cocky young Marine, who apparently managed to get Ishta flowers.

Just another Christmas at the SGC.

**Author's Note:**

> do i ship sam and teal'c? absolutely.


End file.
